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So much we've never tried, so many adventures to come!

Heading Home

If PJ’s first week in the NICU was the hardest, the last one felt the longest. On the one hand, I was really happy – he was making so much progress! He’d hit his targets for age, temperature, and had been moved into the “almost ready to go home” wing of the NICU. Yay PJ! Although how he got there is one of the things I will embarrass teenage PJ about (tee hee!)
The nurses were debating whether it was time to take him out of his isolette and move him into this wing when he had a massive exploding poop that completely ruined the isolette and made the decision for them – he managed to get it all over me, a nurse, all of his bedding, and three walls of his isolette. They kicked him out on the spot and he got a great big warning note in his chart that he was a dangerous diaper change!

Moooommm! Why you gotta embarrass me like that?!

On the other hand, being in this wing was really hard because it was so close to home, but not there yet. He was still on the fence about whether he wanted to eat on his own or not, and had quite a few “Brady’s” which are alarms on his heart monitor. Scary things for mommy to see, although the nurses promised that his heart was just fine, his brain just needed to catch up and remind him that he needs to breathe and beat ALL the time, not just when he feels like it.

And then, all the other babies in the room got their going-home plans. Except PJ. I had a really rough time with that – even though I knew it would happen soon, it felt like he would never be coming home with us and I would be commuting to the hospital forever. I had a good little pity party about it, and my much more practical husband just kept reminding me that our baby was really early and just needed time to catch up, and he would get there eventually. As usual, Paul was right (and hopefully not reading this blog too much, I don’t want it to go to his head), and two days after a little meltdown, I got the call from PJ’s doctor that as long as he didn’t have any more alarms, he would be home in 48 hours! Wa hoo!

That Saturday morning, Paul and I went up to the NICU with an empty car seat, and brought PJ home 🙂

Isn’t that owl hat adorable? Our neighbor Danielle made it for him, I was so happy he could wear it home! This is what happened when we got here:

Roxie, the more social of our two cats, had to come check out the new member of the family. She was not impressed at the time, but he’s grown on her and her sister Velma since then.

So that’s the end of our stay in the NICU, but just the beginning of our family story in “Neverland” – I hope you will all stick around to see what happens next!

Hooray! Time does stretch slowly in the NICU! One of my girls’ favorite stories is how one of them pooped on the Respiratory Therapist from a few paces away. I bet PJ will love the poop story in his 3’s and 4’s. Best wishes to you and thanks for sharing your journey with us!